I have a situation where my ancestor's gravestone reads that he was
born March 29th, 1756 but the original church record for his
christening lists his birth date as March 29th, 1757. He immigrated to
Pennsylvania in 1774 from Pferdsfeld (Germany).
Can anyone come up with some scenarios or an explanation for this
discrepancy? I am open to any ideas!
Was there any kind of age requirement to emigrate on immigrate in
1774?
I understand too, that perhaps he just simply didn’t know the right
year or whomever had the gravestone made may have made a mistake.
Thank you!
Hello
As for the difference of the birth year on his stone, it happens often, discrepancies between birth and death records. Please note any death record, whether it be a written record or a tombstone, is only as accurate as the person giving the information. I hope that someone on the the list gives an answer as far as to any German records that could be available. As for Pennsylvania records, there is a book called Pennsylvania German Pioneers, this book is a list of family heads that as they departed from their ship of arrival at Philadelphia harbor, they had to sign an oath of allegiance to the British. It list all the names of the family heads and single males onboard the ship and where the ship came from and date of arrival.
Hope it helps.
Warren Lambing
There was no age requirement for emigration at the time.
It may simply be one of the common mistakes in calculating the birth
year from the indicated age at death, which was often indicated only
approximately, whereas the day and the month were correctly remembered
(a special day every year!).
Friedrich